The chief executives of Australia’s two biggest cattle companies have called on Prime Minister
Tony Abbott
to establish a beef industry taskforce to ensure Australia benefits from the boom in global protein demand, while dismissing fears about Indonesian investment in Australian cattle land.

The call comes in the wake of a successful Abbott-led delegation to Indonesia this week, which restored optimism within the sector that the fallout from the Gillard government’s 2011 live cattle export ban had been repaired.

AACo
chairman
Donald McGauchie
and
Consolidated Pastoral
patriarch
Ken Warriner
were both members of Mr Abbott’s 20-strong delegation of business heavyweights to Indonesia.

Craig White
, the CEO of the nation’s biggest beef producer, AACo, and Consolidated Pastoral CEO
Keith Warren
, said the delegation had sparked a huge amount of optimism and energy from both Indonesians and Australians, and Mr Abbott’s consultative approach should be taken further.

“We absolutely need a beef industry body to join together with government and help inform the decision-making," said Mr Warren, who oversees two feedlotting operations in Indonesia.

“Australia actually consumes just 20 per cent of its beef productions, so we are a beef foodbowl for the world. We have an enormous opportunity and we need government support to provide [market] access."

Market access at top of agenda

Consolidated Pastoral is Australia’s biggest exporter of live cattle to Indonesia, shipping about 30,000 head to that market last year – close to 12 per cent of Indonesia’s total offtake.

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“This latest round of new licenses and discussion around further licenses for feeder cattle, from 46,000 to over 100,000, shows you how important what Tony Abbott has done is," Mr Warren said.

AACo’s Mr White said the former government’s live export ban “was very much a knee-jerk response and I don’t think they had any understanding of the extent to which they destroyed commerce in the north.

“We’ve had a change of government and there is a fresh approach, fresh energy and real commitment. I think this is the start of a journey on both sides to address the issues created by the previous government."

He said AACo would happily take part in an industry group.

John Berry
, a director of Australia’s biggest meat processor,
JBS Swift
, said there is a great opportunity for Mr Abbott to bring together a group of industry players to work with his ­government around market access.

“We recently had a meeting with Tony Abbott at our Dinmore facility just outside Brisbane, and we said market access is front and centre the major priority for the red meat industry," Mr Berry said. “We can’t continue to compete in an international market at twice the cost of our competitors. It’s about being able to grow the pie through market access."

‘Rhetoric alarmist, unhelpful’

In the lead-up to election, both Labor and the Coalition made protectionist commentary about restricting foreign investment in agriculture that threatened to destabilise market access talks.

Last week, Indonesia’s biggest im­porter of Austra­lian live cattle, Santori, tested the waters by snapping up two of the Northern Territory’s best-known cattle stations. The purchase follows a plan by the Indonesian government to allow co-investment in Australian farms, with ownership of up to 1 million hectares to breed its own cattle.

Mr Warren and Mr White said foreign investment fears were misplaced.

“Santori bought two properties that almost join ours," Mr Warren said. “We are trading partners with them and we are very supportive of this transaction. In the scheme of things, 1.5 million hectares is infinitesimal. Some of the rhetoric has been alarmist and unhelpful."

Mr White said: “The fact is that this industry needs foreign investment. The pools of capital that are available here are limited and I think we’ve all got to be careful we don’t get too parochial. It’s a two-way street and when you see what Santori are doing,.­ . . I don’t feel too concerned."